Strange Arrival
by Irhaboggle
Summary: After losing her best friend to some hotheaded kid, Max Caulfield is about to lose her cousin to an eldritch abomination with a pension for trapping people in a dark forest with 8 pages that they must collect in order to survive. The storm in Arcadia Bay had nothing on the monster waiting for her and her cousin in Oakside Park...
1. The Call

Max Caulfield buried her head in her arms and wept. It had been about three months since Chloe Price died and Max would still break down crying over it sometimes. Of course, nobody would be able to get over the death of their best friend in a mere three months, but Max still hated the tears. She hated the weakness. She hated the guilt and grief. She hated the regret and shame. She hated how gross crying made her feel, both on a physical and emotional level. Along with being a literal pain, every tear she shed reminded her of how easily the whole situation could've been diverted if only she hadn't just up and left Chloe when she and her family moved out of Arcadia Bay all those years ago. If she had made any effort at all to maintain their friendship, Chloe might still be alive…

Max continued to grieve, weeping alone in her Blackwell Academy dorm room, the door firmly shut and locked. During her cry, however, her phone went off. Max pulled her head away from her arms to scowl at the little black device angrily. She mentally cussed it out, yelling at it for interrupting her alone time. When she leaned over to read the name on the screen, however, her face softened. It was her father, Ryan Caulfield. No matter how mad or sad Max felt, she could never deny a call from family. So with a sad smile, the girl picked up her phone and answered the call.

"Dad?" Max forced herself to sound as happy as she could.

"Max?" Ryan asked back, sounding incredibly relieved. In the back of her mind, Max wondered why he sounded like this, but she said nothing. Instead, she chose only to bask in his voice as they exchanged pleasantries. But of course, such casual conversation couldn't last forever. In time, after the superficial and customary greetings had been exchanged, Ryan's tone turned urgent and serious.

"I am afraid we may need to delay our spring break plans," he said at last, cutting to the chase.

"What? Why?" Max asked. She couldn't help but feel like there was something more that he wasn't telling her, but she wasn't going to press him on it just yet. Instead, she let him spin his own story first.

"It's kind of complicated," he began. "But your mother and I are having some issues getting everything arranged and some other small problems have just come up and we need to deal with them first. It's only a small thing, though, so we should still be able to bring you home. It'll just be on a date later than expected," he explained.

"Oh, ok," Max sighed in disappointment as her father finished his story.

"I really am very sorry sweetheart," Ryan grimaced. He could hear the sadness in Max's voice and he hated knowing that he had caused it.

"Oh, I'm not mad about having to delay coming home," Max said. "I'm mad that you aren't telling me the truth."

There was silence on the other end of the call before Ryan cleared his throat.

"What do you mean, honey?" he asked, trying to sound entirely innocent. It failed miserably. Ryan had never been good at lying.

"Come on, Dad, I know there's something you aren't telling me," the young woman said boldly. "I can hear it in your voice that this 'small problem' of yours is something far bigger and I think I have a right to know."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ryan insisted. It was a really lame counterargument.

"Look, Dad, you either tell me what the problem is, or I'm going to assume it's not that bad at all and I'll just have one of my friends drive me home instead if you can't come to get me," she said. It was a bluff, but she knew her father would fall for it. She was correct.

"No, wait, wait, honey! Wait!" Ryan pleaded.

"I'm listening," Max replied. She knew she was being needlessly cruel and bossy, but she figured that she did have a right to know what might be going on in her family. Besides, Chloe's death, and her hand in it, had instilled a new sense of cynicism and aggression in Max that didn't always used to be there. She was still pretty meek, but she no longer feared pulling out a harsher side of herself if it was necessary.

"It's just really complicated and serious and I don't want you in the crossfire," Ryan sighed. Max could hear the pain in his voice.

"I'll be ok, Dad," Max's soft voice returned. "I promise. Just please tell me. You can't keep me in the dark forever."

"I know, sweetheart, believe me, I know," Ryan replied. Max heard him laugh weakly before he finally conceded to tell her the story.

Max had a paternal cousin named Lauren Caulfield. She was the daughter of Ryan's older brother, Reagan. Lauren was about three years older than Max and she lived up in Canada on the very southern tip of Alberta right near the Rockies. She and Max had been very close as children despite the distance between them and, even as the years rolled by and Max and her family moved farther south, the two cousins remained close. Then, through Lauren, Max had met another girl named Kate. Kate was Lauren's age and, according to Lauren, the couple had been friends since they were five. Max didn't know Kate nearly as well as she knew Lauren, but she knew enough about Kate to at least be on friendly terms with the girl. The reason this information was important was because the problem Ryan was facing dealt with Lauren and Kate. Apparently, just a few days ago, both of them had gone missing.

"Missing?" Max couldn't believe it. This had to be a joke! This couldn't be real! Right?

"Yes," Ryan replied grimly. "Just a few days ago, Lauren went up to visit Kate, but then she never came home. Her father, your Uncle Reagan, went up there personally to go see what was wrong..." Ryan trailed off.

"And did he find anything?" Max pressed.

"Yes and no," Ryan admitted slowly. "He found no trace of either of the girls, nor did he find any clues as to where they might've gone, but he _did_ find a mess waiting for him once he got into Kate's house. Apparently, the whole place was in shambles, furniture overturned, objects smashed and broken, various electrical appliances nonfunctional, certain doors and windows thrown wide open... A general mess over all! But apparently, the strangest thing about all of it were the drawings..."

"Drawings?" Max echoed. Ok. This was getting really weird. A missing cousin? And a trashed house? Had there been an abduction?

"Yes. Drawings," Ryan confirmed. "Scattered all around the house, written on the walls and on scraps of paper, written in marker and, in one place, blood, were all of these crude and almost psychotic sketches of a man. A tall, thin man in a suit with no face. Sometimes this man had tentacles..." Ryan trailed off again. "I know it sounds crazy," he continued when Max said nothing. "But it's true! The house is a mess, every room lined with these strange and creepy drawings of that tall man, but no one can figure out what on earth could have caused all of it! We've since called the cops and they can't find any DNA that doesn't belong to Kate or Lauren, and since nothing in the house is missing or stolen, they're ruling out abduction or theft. The girls must've done this themselves, but we have no clue why, or where they are now," Ryan continued.

"Strange," Max muttered, gears turning. Suddenly, the air in her room felt much colder.

"It is," Ryan agreed. Then he continued to explain. Apparently, not long after the cops got involved trying to find Lauren and Kate, it was discovered that a third young adult had gone missing around the same time and place as Kate and Lauren had. This one was a man named Carl Ross. It sounded like he was a close friend of Kate's, though Max was sure she'd never heard Lauren speak of him before.

So not only did this mean that there were three teenagers gone, but the fact that they all went missing at the same time in the same place and they all knew each other seemed highly suspect. The cops tried to investigate the area further, going as far as the nearby Oakside Park, but nothing turned up. They did manage to find swatches of all three teenagers' DNA around the gates to Oakside, but then the trail went cold again.

"So I'm assuming you're up there now, helping out?" asked Max once the grim tale was over. From the way her father had been talking, she was certain he had seen Kate's chaotic house for himself.

"Yes," Ryan replied. "Your mother and I came up just a day ago and your aunt and uncle are both nervous wrecks. That's why I think we'll have to postpone your spring break. I am so sorry this has to happen, but I can't leave Reagan yet and I don't want you to have to see any of this," Ryan sounded so hurt and sad and scared that Max felt a wave of pain and empathy wash over her.

"It's ok, Dad. I understand, of course you should stay up there!" she assured him. This desire to comfort and care for the people around him was something innate within Ryan and it had passed down to Max as well. She now understood what torment her father was going through and she didn't want to make things worse. It was probably why he had sounded so relieved when she answered his call. It was the selfish delight of realizing that his child was still ok even after hearing that his brother's was not.

"Yeah, listen, honey, I've got to go," Ryan said, sounding rueful. "The cops are back and your mother and I are needed for emotional support. I can call later, if you want?" he offered.

"No, that's ok," Max replied. "Uncle Reagan needs you more. But thank you, Dad. I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart," Ryan replied. "Now I'll talk to you soon, ok?" then he hung up.

Max sat back with a sigh as she tossed her phone away again. She rubbed her puffy red eyes tiredly.

"Could life get any worse?" she asked aloud. She would come to regret asking such a question very soon. That night, in fact, Max had a strange and terrifying dream. She was walking through a dark forest full of black trees whose branches twisted and spiraled off into the smoggy, starless night sky. As she walked through this creepy forest, she ended up noticing something bright white upon one of the trees. The sharp contrast drew her over and she realized that it was a piece of paper, taped on the trunk of the gnarled, old tree. She reached out for it, taking it off the tree.

"Always watches, no eyes?" she read the paper aloud. The moment she turned away from the tree, still studying the odd piece of paper, a horrible screeching sound filled her ears. It sounded human, animal, digital and monstrous all at once, but before Max could even scream out her surprise and fright, the very darkness itself seemed to swarm over Max like a massive wave of blackness. It engulfed her body, swallowing her whole. She tried to cry out then, but the shadows had totally smothered her. Her scream was drowned in her throat as masses of something long and slick slithered around her, entombing her within their grasp and squeezing her tighter and tighter and tighter...

"LET GO!" Max shot up in her bed, screaming. She looked all around herself wildly, in a blind panic, arms waving wildly as she tried to find this unseen attacker. As she continued to squirm, however, she finally came to her senses and realized that she was back, safe and sound, in her own dorm room, nothing out of place at all. This sight slowly soothed her, calming her speeding heart. At last, she managed to steady herself long enough to shake her own head in confusion and disbelief. What on earth had that been? But when no answer came to her, it only took Max all of five minutes to fall back asleep despite her terror. The rest of the night was totally dreamless.

But the same could not be said for the next day. On the contrary, she began to be plagued by chronic blackouts, just fainting for no reason. It really scared her, but not for the reasons one would think. Back when Chloe was still alive, Max found out she had the power to reverse time, but all through the week that she had had those powers, she would sometimes get strange premonitions and fainting spells. These blackouts would precede her time travel usage, so she began to associate the two. Of course, she hadn't had those time travel powers since Chloe died those few months ago, but this round of fainting spells sure felt like the ones she used to get when she did still have those powers.

"What is going on?" she asked herself softly after blacking out for the third time in one day. It was a record. What scared Max more than having the blackouts, though, was what she saw in them. All three times, she was back at that awful, evil forest, but now there was someone else with her. Another girl about her age. The girl Max saw was bloody, bruised and broken and she looked haggard and hungry, limping as quickly as she could through the trees. Max could feel terror and illness and exhaustion rolling off her in waves and Max felt her insides churn upon seeing how badly the poor girl had been tortured. But clearly, it was far from over. Why else would this girl, weak and wounded as she was, still look so bent upon escape? Her eyes were wide and never still as she slipped through the beaten paths of the forest, in and out of the trees and shrubbery. Max followed her silently on as she limp-ran, gasping and whimpering through her pain and terror. She didn't appear to be able to see Max.

But on the fifth vision, on the fifth time Max had been forced into this nightmare of a forest, she came to realize something even more horrific than it or the girl's predicament combined. The moonlight managed to catch the girl's face in such a way that Max finally got to see it clearly and what she saw was quickly seared into her memory. It was her own face. This girl was Max in the future.

"I don't want these powers!" Max had howled in injustice and despair once she woke up from this fifth vision. She was back in her dorm room, lying face down on her bed and screaming miserably into her pillow. "I don't want these powers!" but she remained unheard and unanswered, left alone with nothing but three more visions to keep her company, though this was nothing new to her. But then, on Vision Eight, Max finally got some real answers...

Vision Eight began just as normally as all other ones before it had, except this time, her future self finally seemed to be running to some place in particular. As Max would come to see, this particular place was an abandoned mine, titled: "Kullman Mines". It didn't exactly look like a safe place to be, but given what Max had seen of this place already, it couldn't be any worse than the forest itself. So she, silently and obediently, followed her future self into the heart of the Kullman Mines and ran deeper and deeper inside until they were far away from everything else.

Then that was when the change began. Future Max looked right into the eyes of Present Max and Present Max suddenly realized that this was no future vision. This was a dream! But at the same time, it wasn't just a dream either. It was some kind of special, magic communication between her and this other girl. (Oh, give her a break, stranger things had happened to her before!) Then, at the same time as Max realized this, she realized that the girl was not her future self either. It was her cousin Lauren Caulfield.

Max's jaw dropped in horror as she realized that this brutalized woman standing before her now was living in real-time and that it was her own cousin. It wasn't just some shady future vision of herself, it was actually happening right now and it was happening to her missing cousin who was, for all intents and purposes, still technically missing. It was almost surreal to think that technically, Max knew exactly where Lauren was despite not being involved in the search while those involved, like her dad, mom, aunt and uncle, still hadn't had a clue. But there wasn't time for Max to muse on the irony of that. Clearly, Lauren had something she needed to say, and she didn't have much time to say it.

"Alright Lauren, what is it?" Max asked at once. Her words might've sounded blunt, but her voice indicated the kind of resignation that came with agreeing to do anything somebody said if it meant helping them out. Lauren detected this underlying surrender and gave a bruised, messy smile in relief, tense body loosing just slightly, causing blood to gush from some of her wounds as her body changed its position. She took Max's willingness as consent to skip long intros and she began to explain right away.

"I don't have a lot of time so you'll have to save your questions and I need you to believe every word I say," she said.

"Go," Max replied. Lauren gave her another relieved smile and she then explained.

Nobody was sure when His arrival was, but speculation said that He had come from Germany. Or more specifically, a large forest in Germany, where He had preyed upon all the children who were foolish enough to travel into His realm. For centuries, He spread this evil influence across the globe before managing to reach the place right around where Kate lived. After that, He began to haunt the entire family, stalking them from generation to generation until he finally attacked one particular family of three, the Mathesons: Charles, Diane and Charlie Jr. He kidnapped the son which drove the wife to leave the husband, never to return, which drove the husband to suicide. From then on, He and the boy remained as master and slave in a nearby forest that would someday become Oakside Park. The boy was imprisoned within his own, abandoned home, a cruel torture from a cruel and nightmarish monster of a master.

Charlie and his evil master stayed that way for years before one foolish girl reopened the curse. That girl was Kate. She was a good girl, but she loved ghost stories and those stories would bring about her demise. She and her best friend, CR, often hunted Oakside Park for ghosts and, on one specific trip, they finally found a ghost. They found Him. From then on, from high school through college, He stalked them both and made their lives a living Hell. In the end, CR suffered Charles' fate while Kate suffered Charlie's, and all of this transpired a mere few hours before Lauren stepped onto the scene, finally uncovering all of these secrets that had been hidden so well for so long. She had taken it upon herself, then, to try and rescue her two friends, but she arrived far too late. CR was dead and Kate was nothing but a mindless proxy, slave to this horrible creature. And now that brought everyone back to the present, Lauren still desperately on the run from Kate and this creature, still trying to find her way out of this nightmarish forest and back home.

"You, Max! You are my ticket out of here!" Lauren cried at last, almost delirious at this point. She gestured psychotically to Max, giving an insane little laugh as she did so. Max could only stare agape. Ok. She was used to strange and weird, but this was freaking insane. But at the same time, Max couldn't deny her belief in Lauren's story. Mad and fantastical as it was, it all added up. Without even meaning to, Max found herself believing every single word Lauren said. Lauren could sense this belief from Max and the relief of it was starting to tug at her sanity.

"I know about your time travel powers," Lauren continued desperately. "And I'm begging you to come out here and use them to save me! We can try to escape the forest together and, maybe, you can use your powers to find us a safe path out of here! And if anything goes wrong, you can just use your powers to bring us back to safety! It'll be like a checkpoint in a videogame!" Lauren gave another unhinged laugh again while Max could only stare, mouth moving, but no sound escaping. At last, however, she was finally able to form a coherent sentence.

"But Lauren," she finally began, voice hoarse. "This _isn't_ a videogame..." Ok, so perhaps that wasn't the best reply, but it was all she had while the rest of her brain tried to understand this crazy nightmare scenario that Lauren was presenting to her.

"I know it's not! But your powers can help it act like one!" Lauren cried frantically as she sensed Max's waning belief.

"But my powers… They don't work anymore. And how could you possibly know about them?" Max pleaded next.

"They may not work now, but it's only because they're in an inactive state! Your powers were only the result of a curse. All we need is for you to return to the magical source for your powers to return and I know this because they're from Him!" Lauren wailed. "Please believe me!"

"Him?" Max gasped. Lauren nodded so hard that Max thought her head would fall off.

"Over the past few days, I've been doing research!" Lauren hissed desperately. "I know that after that foolish family summoned Him over, He began to stalk their bloodlines, killing them off one by one, but always leaving at least one person alive in order to propagate the rest of the family."

"And I'm guessing Kate is a descendant of this line?" Max asked.

"Yes!" Lauren began to nod frantically again. "That was why He took her! And now me, being in the crossfire, makes me another potential food source, and that includes you too because you're my cousin!"

"But that's insane!" Max cried in denial, though she believed every word Lauren was saying.

"It's not!" Lauren argued, close to hysteria. "I know exactly what happened because I found it all here in the books and junk scattered around this evil forest! How else would that be possible if it weren't true?"

"What do you mean you know everything that happened?" Max pressed, almost as hysterical.

"I know about you and Chloe and the time travel and all the mysteries and murders you solved!" Lauren cried. Max felt her heart begin to ache as Lauren reeled off exactly what Max had been up to after all this time. It was terrifying to hear it because it was all totally accurate. Lauren was able to correctly recall every time travel adventure that Max, and Chloe, had ever had together. That shouldn't have been possible... But it was!

"I know about the storm and your final choice and about your powers seeming to die with Chloe!" Lauren finished in a last attempt at getting Max to believe her. An agonized look crossed Max's face at the memory, but Lauren ignored it. "It was all because of Him! He was testing and tormenting you and now I'm asking you now to come to me! I want you to save me and help me put an end to all of this! Before he ends _you_! We can bring your powers back just this once and you can save me! Maybe we can even make Him pay for what He did. To Kate and Chloe and all of us!" Lauren's sanity was clearly slipping again so Max quickly reached out to touch her face.

"Ok, ok, ok! Shhhh! I believe you! I really do! And of course I'll come help! But you've got to tell me how exactly and you've got to give me at least a bit of time to… adjust to all of this," Max pleaded as she gripped Lauren's face hard. Something in Max's agreement and tough grip brought Lauren back from her little slip and she shut her mouth at once, nodding and fighting hard against totally losing it.

"Ok, ok, thank you," Lauren rasped, shaking violently but growing quiet again. "Here's what you need to do…"

Lauren finished her instruction just in time to see His arrival into the Kullman Mines.

"He's here!" Lauren rasped, horror and terror unlike anything Max had ever known seeping into every inch of her body. Suddenly, Lauren was cowering and wild, breath as ragged as her body and clothes. It was an awful transformation, but Max could only watch.

"Oh, please! Come quickly, Max! Now you know what to do! Come find me! Find me, Max!" then the dream went dark.

When Max woke the next morning, all she could see was Lauren's beaten and terrified face watching her, still pleading for her to come up to Canada and help out. For the whole day she felt Lauren's desperate ghost, hounding her, until it all became too much. During lunch, Max finally made a run for it, deciding to answer the call. She ended up tricking one of her friends into borrowing his car and then, without any regrets or remorse, she drove off. She didn't care that it was nearly a day's drive away or that it was so short notice. If what Lauren said was true, Max didn't have time to feel sorry. Not if she wanted to save a life. Time was of the essence, according to Lauren, and even a second of regret could mean an entire life lost. Nobody had much time, even with time travel powers on their side. Besides, Lauren had spoken of Chloe. Any chance to hear more about what had happened and any chance to possibly exact vengeance against the one responsible for it was a chance Max was more than willing to take. For the first time in a long time, Max's blood began to rush again and she felt alive once more after so very long, though this time, she was driven by a motive of vengeance instead of a motive of justice...

Max made her arrival to Kate's mansion early the next morning, 18 hours after she had first began her journey, fleeing Blackwell. She was sure somebody would've noticed and called her parents by now, but she couldn't be distracted by that. She had far more important things to do now, even though she wasn't sure where to begin or how long she'd even survive given that she still didn't have her powers and, as far as she knew, she had a demon straight from Hell chasing her now because of her ties with Lauren. But despite all this, Max couldn't help but almost… anticipate what was coming next. Perhaps because it finally offered distraction from the quiet cycle of mourning she'd been stuck in. Or perhaps a small part of her liked to think this was her chance to avenge Chloe or die trying. Saving Lauren was a side quest to her.

But side quest or not, Max still had obligations, so she entered Kate's house with every intent of trying to cause herself another blackout or dream in which Lauren could respond. As Max entered Kate's house, she gave a grim smile. It was just as violent and chaotic as Ryan had said it would be. It almost looked like a massive storm had been through it… Max shook her head and strode in bravely, ignoring the flickering lights and insane drawings that covered every overturned piece of furniture throughout the house. Instead, she focused on reaching Kate's room, knowing exactly where it was despite having not hung out with Kate since middle school.

"Right on time," she whispered with morbid satisfaction as she felt a wooziness overcome her a mere two seconds after stepping into Kate's room. Then she blacked out.

When next Max woke, it was morning, and she was still alive and in one piece.

"I suppose that's a good thing," she said bitterly to herself, sitting up from Kate's floor. Despite how scary Kate's room was, there was something about the morning light that made it less unnerving and Max felt that it was a good day, no, a good _time_ , to start her journey. After freshening up, grabbing some nourishment and supplies, the girl left Kate's mansion for Oakside Park. Max was about to make a very strange arrival.


	2. The Journey

Max reached the Kullman Mines at about midday, entirely undisturbed. She almost began to disbelieve Lauren's story and she began to wonder if it hadn't all been mass hallucination brought about by grief. But her father's story about the three missing teenagers in Oakside Park, coupled with the strange sensation that there was always somebody watching her despite being invisible, made it impossible for Max to ever truly let her guard down, even though the day had been very lovely and quiet so far. Even the mines looked nice in the warm, gentle sun. But the moment Max set one foot inside them, it was like entering a whole new world and she could already smell and taste the lingering fear of all the others who had come here before her. Now Max knew for sure that this was no wild goose chase, but instead, was a very cruel and unfortunate reality. But Max pressed onward, despite the fear she was starting to feel crawl up her spine. She figured that if Lauren trusted this place, so could she. Besides, the vision she received last night (or really early morning, depending on how you looked at it) had been Lauren telling her to go to the mines ASAP and wait until she made her arrival. So now Max was here, in the spot where she and Lauren had agreed upon meeting...

After an indefinite amount of time, Max heard Lauren call out to her from somewhere over her head. She looked up and felt her heart jump in the same direction. There, on a catwalk right over her head, stood her cousin, Lauren Caulfield, just as battered, bruised and maimed as she had been in all of the visions that she and Max had shared. Max's heart ached for her.

"Lauren!" she cried. Lauren only smiled down at her before racing from the catwalk to reach her.

"You came!" she whispered in relieved awe as she grabbed Max for a hug. "You really actually came!" she began to weep as she embraced Max.

"Of course I did!" Max replied softly, returning the hug. Then both girls began to cry in relief and sorrow.

Once the tears dried, however, they both returned at once to the more pressing matters at hand.  
"It's 2:00 pm and we're finally together," Lauren said at once.

"2:00?" Max echoed in surprise. "Last I checked it was only 1:00."

"Sorry I kept you waiting," Lauren replied with a sheepish grin. "But I had to do my rounds in case He was anywhere nearby. But I think we should be safe for now, at least for awhile," she promised.

"Don't worry," Max replied. "I'm not afraid. Let's just use what time we have wisely."

"Of course," Lauren nodded, the she leaned in close to Max and whispered her plan.

It was pretty much just like what she had told Max before, only now they were actually going to get Max's powers back.

"Using this talisman, you should be able to use it almost unlimitedly," Lauren said, giving Max a tiny necklace whose gem looked like an hourglass. How fitting. Max put it on shyly. "I've already activated it too, so just give it a shot and rewind time," Lauren requested and Max obeyed, inhaling slowly as the familiar sensation returned to her...

"It's 2:00 pm and we're finally together," Lauren said at once. Max smiled grimly in reply.

So with her powers back and a plan in order, all the remained was for the Caulfield cousins to set their plan into action and start making the journey. But of course, life was never so simple. First off, Max had to remain alive and keep the talisman with her at all times. It turned out that talisman's true form was actually the spell itself. The very capability to control time had somehow been manifested in a little necklace. And whenever this capability was cast, something like a ghostly orb would rise up from the speaker and take shape into whatever the speaker desired. It was upon hearing this that Max figured that the previous spell-user had turned the Time Travel Talent into a camera, hence why Max had been able to time travel through her photos. The only difference this time, aside from her new talisman being a necklace instead of a camera, was that this necklace had a wider capacity for time travel. With the camera, the rules had been very strict and specific. Max had to use the photos and could only travel backwards by about 10 minutes. With this necklace, she could go back up to almost an hour, though it would drain her energy far worse than the camera ever had and the camera hadn't exactly been the easiest of objects to use in the first place...

"It's ok," Lauren reassured when Max confessed to being unsure about how well her own strength would hold up using the necklace. "Just as long as you have the power, that's all that really matters!"

"Then why didn't you use it?" Max asked in reply, genuinely curious as to why Lauren had needed her here at all.

"Because you know it better," Lauren answered. "You've had more practice using this kind of power and, thusly, have had more experience and more time to build up more stamina. Even if it has been a few months, remember that I've never controlled time for a day in my life, so even you have a better grasp and stamina for it than I do," she explained and Max had to agree that she had a point.

Besides, it made more logical sense to have one person out of two act as a Time Keeper instead of having one person do both jobs just because there was strength in numbers (even if that number was only two), and that way, if anything were to happen, that would give the Time Keeper time to go back. If there had only been one person, that person would have to play the role of a distractor and a Time Keeper both. Not quite as easy as just having a friend who could reverse time while you distracted whatever danger was headed your way. If only Lauren controlled time, the full burden of using it before being killed would be on her. So Max was placated and allowed herself to use the power once again.

"So what do we do now?" Max asked as she allowed herself to accept her new role as a Time Keeper again.

"We start the journey," Lauren replied, then she led her younger cousin out of the mines and back into the woods...

"I've never walked this far at one time," Lauren commented some time during the journey.

"Really?" Max asked in surprise and Lauren's face darkened.

"He's incredibly persistent," she said and Max asked no more, choosing instead to focus on the path ahead.

At last, however, the girls reached their first trial.

"What's that sound?" it was Lauren who noticed it first.

"Sound?" Max echoed, stepping closer to her cousin.

"It sounds like…like…like feet!" Lauren whispered. She took Max's arm. "Come on Max, let's go," she insisted.

"You don't need to tell me twice," Max replied, following after Lauren at once. But that proved to be a terrible mistake. The moment their backs were turned to the sound, a guttural howl sounded off and the two girls whipped back around in terror. What jumped from the shadows of the trees was something awful. It was a person, a girl perhaps, that was slightly taller than average. She wore a black leather jacket, its hood fully up and secured to a smooth white mask she wore. It only bore a bit of dirt and 1 scratch. So it was a fairly new proxy then, but that made it no less terrifying. Instead, it was Lauren who was first to break from her trace and shout one simple word: RUN.

As the Caulfield cousins sprinted through the trees, Lauren whipped out a flashlight. It might've still been in the late afternoon, the sun having not started setting yet, but she still turned the thing on. She turned the high beam on and pointed it right into the eyes of their pursuer. The monster howled in surprise and pain, the sudden burst of light from Lauren's hand temporarily blinding it, causing it to stumble and fall. The fall would give them just enough time to escape! Lauren gave a triumphant cry which Max echoed. This encouragement gave the pair something of a speed boost but, before either of them were totally out of sight of the fallen monster, Lauren chanced a look back. All of her sense of grandiose died at once. Because of its little stumble, the proxy's mask had fallen off and even though the face underneath was not one Lauren had seen in a very long time, she would still recognize that short blue hair anywhere. Chloe Price.

Awhile later, the two exhausted girls stopped sprinting long enough to catch their breath. They were in another part of the forest now, too far west, but both of them were too tired to care.

"Whew!" Max cried, sweating and panting like a dog as she bent over. Lauren mimicked her, but she was a lot less dramatic in her motions. "Glad we got away from whatever that was!" the younger girl put a hand to her heaving chest.

"Proxy," Lauren replied through gasps, swallowing painfully.

"What-sy?" Max asked back.

"Proxy," Lauren repeated as she slowly caught her breath, then she explained. A proxy was His slave, turned insane by His magic and forced to do His will. "I don't know if proxies are under His full control or if there is still some of them left inside the body He took from them, but I do know that they are forces to be avoided at all costs," Lauren was still panting a little as she told Max this.

"Ok. Proxy is bad," Max was heaving too. "Got it," then she plunked herself down where she stood. "I don't care if this is dangerous, I need rest," she insisted. "Especially if we may need my powers later."

"Agreed," Lauren said, then she sat down beside Max. "We'll take a few minutes, but then we must press on," she said, and Max nodded silently in agreement, breathing finally evening out again. The two sat in total silence. Both of them, however, were lost in thought.

Lauren was thinking about Max and her power. Lauren's true intent with Max had been a bit more than she let on. Of course, she did fully intend to use Max's Time powers to help them both escape the forest, but also, it was Lauren's hope that, with enough trial and error, Max might find a way to help Lauren save Kate too. Maybe Max would never be strong enough to reverse time to before His arrival, but at the very least, she might be able to give them enough attempts out here to find, subdue, and restore Kate, because Lauren did not intend upon leaving this forest without her best friend at her side, no matter how long it took. But if Lauren's plan worked as she hoped, they would have all the time in the world! All Lauren had to do was make sure Max stayed alive and well...

Ironically enough, Max was thinking along similar lines. As Lauren's lesson about proxies echoed in her mind, Max began to wonder if resurrection was possible and if there might be a way to bring Chloe back too. If what Lauren said was true, then her death had been caused, in part, by Him, and if that was true, maybe life could consider Chloe his victim, and if that was true, then maybe she could be brought back by the same magic... Max knew it was dangerous, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't entirely foolish. If it turned out saving Chloe was possible, then Max knew that she did not intend upon leaving this forest without her best friend at her side, no matter how long it took...

At last, however, rest time came to an end and the two cousins got to their feet once more, ready to continue with the journey home. They managed to walk for about an hour, totally uninterrupted and unharmed. It wasn't until the duo reached a ring of abandoned and rundown cabins somewhere in the forest that either of them spoke again.

"Alright, I know there's a safe spot in here," Lauren murmured, breaking the peaceful silence, then she limped towards one of the cabins. Max followed carefully after, heart wrenching slightly as she saw how unsteady Lauren's gait was. Clearly, the older girl was far more beaten down and weary than she was letting on. Max approached her cousin gently and offered an arm. Lauren looked at her in surprise, at first, before smiling and taking Max's offered aid with affectionate eyes. It had been so long since Lauren had felt this safe or happy, and from what she saw when she looked into Max's eyes, she could see that the feeling was mutual.

"Thanks," she said, leaning carefully on Max.

"No problem," Max replied, wrapping her arm carefully around Lauren's bloodied back. Had she been whipped? "I'm sorry you had to go through all of this," she said as she touched the wounds.

"They were only tree branches," Lauren replied casually in reference to her wounds, but then her face darkened. "But I agree, I'm sorry I had to go through all of this too," she said, scowling.

"I'm so sorry about Kate," Max offered.

"So am I," Lauren echoed, but then her face softened again, though now there seemed to be pity laced within. "I'm sorry about Chloe."

"So am I," Max joked, feeling her eyes mist over as a shade of blue filled her memories. "I loved her..."

"I loved Kate too," Lauren replied sadly.

"But is your Kate still alive?" Max asked, unsure if a positive answer would yield relief or envy from her.

"In a sense," Lauren replied vaguely. Max looked at her curiously. "Proxy."

"Oh," Max instantly felt bad for asking.

"Doesn't matter," Lauren replied, looking away. At once, Max wanted to admonish her cousin, but she knew her cousin was only saying this to cope with the loss. Max did the same thing after Chloe died, insisting that they had been apart for too long for so many tears to be warranted. But it hadn't helped. Max was sure it wasn't helping Lauren either.

At last, the pair was inside the cabin, each of them sitting down upon one of the beds. They were old, cold, dirty, unkempt, and probably packed with bugs and bacteria, but they were sturdy and mildly comfortable, so that was all that mattered at the moment. Lauren had made sure to close and lock all the doors and windows before sitting down on her own bed, groaning as she did so, the bed creaking terribly once she sat down.

"It may not do much, but it does make me feel safer," Lauren said as she looked at the last window that she had shut.

"Well, at least it'll keep wild animals out," Max offered.

"True," Lauren replied. "Now are you hungry? I've got a small stash here from a vending machine just a few cabins over," the girl began to reach inside the mattress of her bed.

"No, I actually brought food," Max interrupted, showing off her backpack. Lauren's eyes widened as she saw the contents.

"Oh! Chocolate!" she sighed, a hungry look in her eyes.

"Take it," Max replied with a smile. Lauren met her eyes uncertainly, but Max only pushed the bag forward, so Lauren took it gratefully and ate.

"All the other food here is stale, old cakes and chips," Lauren confessed as she peeled the mattress back further to reveal everything that she had promised. Max chuckled softly, then she grabbed a chocolate bar for herself and ate.

A few happy minutes of silence settled between the pair until, just for a moment, Max felt as though she were merely at a summer camp, but those peaceful and idealistic thoughts came to a halt the moment Lauren suddenly froze up. She stopped eating and became straight and stiff as a board, but before Max could even open her mouth to ask what was wrong, Lauren collapsed backward, twitching like one in a seizure, clawing at her ears and eyes while her mouth contorted violently, but no sound emitted from her throat. Max felt her own heart begin to pound with panic. "Lauren? Lauren?! LAUREN!" Max jumped from her bed to Lauren's and began to clutch the girl in attempt to bring her back to the real world. It was of no use and Max was finally forced to sit back and watch Lauren suffer, still convulsing and clawing at herself, that silent scream practically carved into her face at this point. Just when Max began to wonder if she shouldn't reverse time, however, Lauren's violent attack ended. Quick as it came, Lauren suddenly stilled and relaxed, entire body un-tensing itself.

"It was Him!" Lauren rasped the moment she could speak again. "He's coming!" and no further instructions were needed.

"What are we going to do?" Max whispered as she and Lauren sprinted through the woods. The sun was almost totally below the horizon.

"We have to go back eventually," Lauren replied.

"What?!" Max shrieked. Lauren hushed her wildly. "Sorry!" Max whispered next. "But why do we have to go back?!"

"We have to go back because He'll catch us if we keep going forward," Lauren explained. "It's like a game of cat and mouse where the cat lets the mouse get out of his paws for a little before snatching him back up. We need to backtrack to throw Him off our trail!" the idea didn't sound very pleasant to Max, to go back deeper into that awful forest, but Lauren's logic made sense and Max wouldn't dare disobey somebody who understood the mechanics of this forest and its sinister inhabitant more than she did. So back they went.

The only unfortunate thing that happened was running into a proxy after undoing 50% of their work that day. This proxy, unlike the other, had a white hoodie, but it also had its hood and mask on so it was impossible to see-

"Kate!" Lauren's strangled sob cut through Max's quick assessment of the proxy. It was nearby but hadn't seen them… Yet. Wait…

"What?" she gasped softly again as Lauren's words struck her. That wild thing before them was Kate? Max might not have known Kate as well as Lauren, but she knew full well this creature looked nothing like Kate.

"Yes!" Lauren cried despite Max's doubts. "Oh! What did He do to her?" she looked like she wanted to run towards the proxy but Max held her. "She didn't have all those scars before! Where did she get those scars?! What did he do to her!?" Lauren fell to her knees, growing increasingly hysterical. It was only her sheer willpower that at least kept her sobs quiet. Max began to worry that the proxy, Kate, or whoever it really was, would hear them so she quickly tried to lead Lauren away. Well, it backfired. In doing this, Max stepped on a tree branch. Kate's head whipped around faster than lightning and when her two pinprick eyes saw Lauren and some new girl who seemed to be helping her, she went berserk.

What ensued was another mad dash around the wood as the two girls tried to outrun Kate. Every once in awhile, Lauren would perform the flashlight trick, despite crying her eyes out. Just when Max began to wonder if they would ever actually manage to escape Kate, however, something finally happened. But then, instead of getting them further away from Kate, it only brought them closer back to her. The poor proxy ended up getting her leg caught in a stray bear trap that, by dumb luck, Lauren and Max had somehow missed. Kate went down at once, screaming bloody murder as her leg was crushed in the metal jaws of the trap. Lauren heard that cry of pain and instantly turned back to help, running towards Kate instead of away from her. Max began to panic, whisper-yelling that Lauren get away from Kate at once.

"Lauren! No! What are you doing?!" Max demanded as she watched Lauren kneel down before Kate, softly pleading with the girl to let her help. Max's head darted all around in case He was nearby. "Lauren! Come on! We don't have time for this! We have to go! Now! Before He comes! What are you doing, Lauren?! You can't trust her! Come on!" Max continued to whisper-yell, but Lauren ignored her.

"Come on Kate, I know you're still in there. and it's me! It's Lauren! Your old best friend?" she reached out towards the proxy and was pleased, this time, to see that it wasn't snarling at her. Instead, it almost seemed submissive… "There you go, girl! Now you've got it!" Lauren hummed softly as she carefully undid the bear trap. Max was nearly sick with worry, but Lauren continued to ignore her in favor of Kate. Once the trap was completely open, Kate slowly slid her leg out. Her eyes were still glowing white, but the light seemed less harsh, and when her eyes met Lauren's, she whimpered, and it sounded totally human...

"Lauren! Come on! Let's go!" Max pleaded, ruining the moment. Lauren still ignored her, however, choosing instead to speak to Kate.

"Come on old girl, don't you listen to her!" she hummed. "You come when you're ready because we have all the time in the world! But you'll see, we're here to come get you out of all of this. You've just got to come with us!" and slowly but surely, Kate began to nod.

"Ok," she said. This stunned both girls into silence.

A few minutes later, the dim outline of a ragtag trio could be seen running through the darkening forest of Oakside Park, one of the trio telling the other two all that had befallen her in the past couple weeks.

"I've been trying to escape ever since," Kate said, voice mangled, raspy and distorted from her demonic transformation.

"Well, we're here now!" Lauren declared. "And we _will_ set you free! With Max's help!" she added the last clause, turning to the other Caulfield.

"Ah! Max! It's been too long!" Kate rumbled. "But it is good to see you again and I can never thank you enough for helping."

"Anything for a friend," Max responded simply and the trio kept on moving.

But right when the three reached the Matheson farm, not too far from the gates into Oakside, He appeared right in front of them all.

"Slenderman!" Kate wailed, stopping so fast she fell over her own feet and face-planted into the ground. Lauren did likewise, grabbing Max so that Max didn't accidently run right into him.

"Cover your eyes!" she shouted and Max obeyed in terror, falling to her knees and plugging her ears while shutting her eyes.

"Don't look, or it takes you!" Max could hear Kate shout in agreement with Lauren's command. This only prompted the younger Caulfield to shut her eyes even tighter. Nothing had happened to her, yet, save that she managed to catch a tiny glimpse of the figure standing before them.

The creature looked just like the man in Kate's drawings: a tall, thin, humanoid with tentacles coming out of his suited back. Most horrifically, his face was totally smooth and white, eyeless but all-seeing. His mere presence filled Max up with an unmatched, unspeakable dread, like something terrible and grisly was about to happen. It was terrifying enough to make Max feel physically ill, beyond the realm of a panic attack and into a chronic anxiety, even though this was her first encounter with this mysterious monster. What had Kate called him? Slenderman? Even the name gave her chills just to think about, even though it, in and of itself, wasn't too frightening.

Max trembled violently and her nose began to gush blood. She felt reality itself distort around her. It was like whenever she used her time travel powers, save that this was far stronger and more sinister. Then at one point, through plugged ears, Max heard Kate beg them to run before her screaming became roaring and she could hear Lauren crying, begging her to stop, but to no avail. There was a horrific sound of tearing flesh as the sounds of the reality warp got louder and more agonizing. Max almost forgot about her power, but the moment she remembered it, she was gone.

"I've been trying to escape ever since," Kate said, voice mangled, raspy and distorted from her demonic transformation.

"Well, we're here now!" Lauren declared. "And we _will_ set you free! With Max's help!" she added the last clause, turning to the other Caulfield.

"Ah! Max! It's been too long!" Kate rumbled. "But it is good to see you again and I can never thank you enough for helping."

"Anything for a friend," Max responded simply, just because she was too scared to say anything else. She had finally met Him, Slenderman, and she finally understood just what he was capable of. Now she was twice as determined as ever to never to meet him again...


	3. The Truth

Just a bit before the girls reached the Matheson farm, Max stopped them.

"Let's go across the river!" she suggested, pointing away from the farm.

"What? Why? The farm is safe!" Kate protested, looking in the opposite direction of Max and back towards the withered house.

"Let's just go!" Max pleaded again, then she met Lauren's eyes and Lauren only needed that one little look to understand what Max meant.

"I agree with Max," she said then. "Let's go across the river," and she gestured to the bridge that Max had pointed out. Max gave her a relieved look before sprinting away from the farm as fast as she could. Behind her, she could hear Kate's confusion.

"Why are you listening to her?" the proxy asked.

"I'll tell you later," Lauren replied. "But for now, just trust me and trust her. Trust that she knows what she's doing..." then neither Kate nor Lauren said anymore as they followed Max across the little rive rand away from the farm.

Once they crossed the river, however, the question of where to go next arose because, a few feet from the river, was a fork in the road.

"Let's just try the left path," Max said slowly.

"But Slenderman will expect us to use that path," Kate rumbled. "Wouldn't it be safer to go right?"

"Yes, but I want to test something," Max replied, not looking at Kate as she spoke.

"Test? We don't have room for error," Kate warned with a frown.

"Trust her," Lauren whispered again from behind. "She knows what she's doing."

"Does she really?" Kate growled, finally growing a little displeased with how everything was unfolding. Max decided it was time to tell the truth.

"Yes," she turned around to look Kate in the eye. "Because I can control time..."

It took quite a bit of convincing but, in the end, Max's story seemed to get through to Kate.

"Wow," Kate rasped when Max finished her little story. "I can't believe..." she began, but she trailed off, the words dying in her mouth. She really didn't have any room to talk about belief and disbelief in reality when she was hardly the most normal or rational thing here either. And when Lauren nodded, silently affirming Max's story, Kate decided to just trust in both of them and let it go, even though everything she'd been told directly defied her sense of logic and reality.

"Yeah, so let's take the left path," Lauren muttered with a dry humor. Kate nodded and followed her and Max down the left path.

The trio didn't get very far before running into another proxy.

"Ticci Toby!" Kate snarled and pushed herself in front of Lauren and Max, her subdued amazement over Max's story quickly turning to anger.

"Chaser! Old friend!" Toby replied with mock amicableness. "How nice to see you! And I see you brought dinner?" he looked at Max and Lauren with large, glowing yellow eyes and a hideously big, white smile.

"No, I brought friends," Kate snarled. "They are mine and if you so much as look at them the wrong way, I will kill you!"

"Ooooh, feisty girl!" Toby shrilled in mad amusement, yellow eyes staring to glow even brighter still. "But I don't think you realize just how wrong you are about those girls because, if I decide I want something, I always, always get it!" he bragged, and then, before anybody even had time to blink, he had withdrawn a massive axe from behind his back.

What ensued was a fight so violent that Animal Planet had nothing on it. Lauren backed up in horror while Max clung to Lauren in pure terror at the sounds and sight of the gore before her. There was screaming and screeching, hissing and spitting, and claw and tooth were both used in this battle, blood and gore flying everywhere, coating the trees and forest paths as the battle quickly became more and more brutal and sadistic. The noises Toby and Kate were making weren't human. They weren't even animal! They were demonic. And their moves were just as violent. At last, however, Toby got the high ground and, in one swift movement, beheaded Kate.

"KATE!" the sound Lauren made was almost more terrifying than the noises Kate had made while fighting Toby. Kate's head soared over theirs, blood raining down from the gore hanging out of the bottom of her neck, then her head landed with a disgusting thump a few feet behind them, rolling slowly back down the dirt path as her body slumped over at Toby's feet, blood gushing from the trunk of her neck. Toby looked down at his handiwork, big white smile splattered with blood as he twirled his big, bloody axe merrily between broken and bloodied fingers. He looked quite amused at the proceedings, big yellow eyes then turning upon the other two living females standing right in front of them. He stopped twirling his axe. That was when Lauren, through her panic attack, grabbed Max's shoulders and screamed at her.

"TIME!" and her command was forceful enough to rouse Max from her own shock and kick her into action.

"Yeah, so let's take the left path," Lauren muttered with a dry humor. Kate nodded and followed her and Max down the left path.

"Actually! Wait!" Max protested. The two others turned back to her in confusion. Max, put on spot, suddenly began to stutter. "I, ummm, uhhh, just got back from the left path and some guy name Ticci Toby is going to be there and he has a giant axe that he uses to kill Kate," she said. In response, while Lauren looked utterly horrified, Kate only scoffed.

"Toby is a loser! He won't defeat me!" she growled.

"But he will! He did!" Max pleaded. "I saw it! He decapitated you!" the girl began to panic again when Kate only scoffed for a second time.

"Listen to her, Kate," Lauren warned, seeing that gleam in Kate's eye and knowing at once what it meant.

"Yeah, I don't think I have the strength for another trip back in time, so let's at least-" Max tried nervously.

"No!" Kate interrupted. "We take the left path and I kill Toby. If you tell me what he did, I can know what to do to avoid dying!" she insisted. Once again, Lauren tried to talk Kate out of her plans, but to no avail and Max was forced to elaborate.

A few minutes later, the trio stood before Toby again and Max mouthed his words along to Kate to prove she had already experienced this.

"Chaser! Old friend!" Toby said. Max mouthed the words perfectly and Kate growled. Max hadn't been lying. "How nice to see you! and I see you brought dinner?" he looked at Max and Lauren, just missing it as Max finished mouthing his lines along with him.

"No, I brought friends," Kate snarled. "They are mine and if you so much as look at them the wrong way, I will kill you!"

"Ooooh, feisty girl!" Toby shrilled in mad amusement, yellow eyes staring to glow even brighter still. "But I don't think you realize just how wrong you are about those girls because, if I decide I want something, I always, always get it!" he bragged, and then, before anybody even had time to blink, he had withdrawn a massive axe from behind his back. But because Kate had known that this was coming, thanks to Max, she darted nimbly away from him and, just as Max had planned, she simply vaulted from tree to tree in attempt to wear Toby out a bit before fighting him directly. The plan worked and, in less than five minutes, he had been beheaded instead.

"What a rush!" Kate crowed as the blood ran down her face. She turned to Max with a nearly insane smile. "You weren't kidding, Time Lord! And I thank you for that! Knowing just what to do!" she cackled as she threw Toby's axe to the ground, his head having since rolled back down the very same path Kate's had in the previous timeline.

"Ummm, you're welcome?" Max chuckled nervously, stepping away from Kate while looking close to puking. Lauren saw this and gently put an arm around Max before silently gesturing for Kate to cool it. Kate saw this gesture and backed away embarrassedly.

"Let's move on," she suggested and instantly scurried off, leaving the Caulfield girls to run after her.

But as the pair traveled closer to their final destination it was Lauren who called for a halt.

"I know this is super embarrassing, but I've got to use the bathroom," she grinned sheepishly, and, despite the dire situation the trio was in, they all chuckled in response. Kate pretended to cover her eyes while Max gestured to a nearby bush. Lauren thanked them both before scurrying away to take her quick break. While she was off doing her business, Kate and Max stayed behind to talk. Once stories had fully been exchanged, however, it occurred to them that Lauren still hadn't returned from her trip.

"Should we go looking?" Max asked nervously. "It's been quite awhile. How long could she possibly need?" Kate nodded at once, a terrifying coldness settling across her face. But scarcely had they taken a single step towards the place they last saw Lauren go to when an agonized scream rose up from the trees a few feet away.

"LAUREN!" Kate and Max screamed in unison, breaking into a sprint. They arrived just in time to see Lauren writhing violently in Slenderman's tentacles. "LAUREN!" they screamed again, practically pushing past each other in order to be the first to save Lauren. Slenderman, however, only shook his empty face at them in something that they instinctively knew was amusement. Then he began twisting Lauren's body brutally, violently. Her limbs went backwards until they popped out of their sockets, her torso twisted in half, and her head made a complete circle on her neck. But even after such damage had been done, Slenderman kept twisting until her limbs had pulled clean off her body, the stubs that were once her limbs all pointing in different directions. The screaming and convulsing turned into silence and limpness as the last of Lauren's bones crunched apart…

"AAAAGGGGRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH!" Kate roared.

"Kate! No!" Max grabbed Kate, but Kate ripped away from her easily and lunged as Slenderman dropped Lauren's mangled, bloody corpse dismissively. Halfway through her lunge, however, Kate's body was changed and she collapsed as well. She had become fully human again, all proxy power totally destroyed. At the same time, Lauren's body began to twitch again, a horrific and gargled moaning emitting from her armless, legless torso. It sank in for Max and Kate at the same time. Lauren had sacrificed herself for Kate, becoming an undead demon in her place.

"NOOOOOO!" Kate screamed once more, taking another charge at Slenderman despite being a mere mortal now. Max cried out for her again, but her scream was cut off as a long black tentacle slashed at her neck and she was lifted straight up. Her cry for Kate turned into a cry of pain at the sudden motion and then the horror of being dangled 20 feet in the air by her neck set in and even though it was killing her, she thrashed as hard as she could, barely able to think. It was only a hissing in the back of her mind that reminded her of her powers...

"I know this is super embarrassing, but I've got to use the bathroom," Lauren grinned sheepishly, but Max stopped her.

"No, Lauren. I need to speak with you first," she said. Lauren and Kate both looked surprised, but Lauren allowed her to do as she pleased.

"What's up?" she asked, but Max only shook her head, dragging Lauren in the opposite direction she'd gone to in the previous timeline. Lauren still looked highly confused, but she continued to let Max drag her away.

"What's up?" she asked again the moment they were on their own, having left Kate back by a tree and out of ear shot.

"I know what you're planning to do and I won't let you do it," Max said instantly, voice cold and hard.

"What?" Lauren was taken aback by her younger cousin's ferocity.

"You're going to sacrifice your life to return Kate's own," Max said plainly. "But you can't do that. It'll kill us all!" then she told Lauren of all she had experienced and, as her tale went on, Lauren's expressionless façade trembled and broke until she was crying softly, her plan called out.

"Ok! Fine! I confess! I was going to sacrifice myself to save Kate! But she was the only reason I came out here in the first! If I lose her now, it'll have all be for nothing!" she wept bitterly. Max only sighed heavily in return, pity in her heart. She knew how Lauren's story would go from this point on, but that couldn't be its end. Max wouldn't let it.

"We need to start over," she said. "And I think I have power enough for one last go back."

"How far back are you planning to go?" Lauren sniffled.

"To the time you first made the deal with Slenderman for Kate," Max responded. Lauren flinched, but then she swallowed nervously and nodded.

"It was when we were back at the cabins," she confessed. "When I went into that state of convulsion, it was because Slenderman was in my head, talking to me. Be glad you've never heard his voice," Lauren broke off to shudder and even Max felt sick at the thought of hearing Slenderman talk.

"Yeah, he was talking to me, threatening and tormenting me. But we made a deal. He promised that if I gave him my life, my victory, then he would restore Kate. I figured you could help her out of the forest in my place," Lauren trailed off sadly as she finished her story.

"I'm sorry Lauren, but I won't let you die. Keep your life, even if it costs Kate her own," Max whispered softly. "Kate's time is up, whether it's fair or not or if you like it or not. Your time, however, like mine, is not up. We need you to keep going. I need you."

"Ok," Lauren sniffled again as Max finished her solemn speech. Max gave her a curt but encouraging nod before inhaling deeply…

"True," Lauren replied. "Now are you hungry? I've got a small stash here from a vending machine just a few cabins over," the girl began to reach inside the mattress of her bed.

"No, I actually brought food," Max interrupted, showing off her backpack, feeling dizzy and sick. Lauren's eyes widened as she saw the contents.

"Oh! Chocolate!" she sighed, a hungry look in her eyes.

"Take it," Max replied with a smile. Lauren met her eyes uncertainly, but Max only pushed the bag forward, so Lauren took it gratefully and ate.

"All the other food here is stale, old cakes and chips," Lauren confessed as she peeled the mattress back further to reveal everything that she had promised. Max chuckled softly, but then her smile disappeared...

Max allowed Lauren to eat about half the chocolate before speaking.

"Lauren, I have something important to tell you," she said. Lauren gestured for her to speak, mouth still full of food. "In about 45 seconds from now, Slenderman is going to invade your mind and talk to you. He's going to try and sway you into sacrificing your life for Kate's, but you _can't let him_. You can't agree to it," Max was holding Lauren now, forcing their eyes to meet even though Lauren was clearly confused and terrified.

"How do you know that?" she whispered, voice and body trembling.

"I saw it," Max replied. "I went forward in time and we were able to save Kate temporarily, but then Slenderman caught up with us anyway and he killed you and then her and he almost killed me. So when he comes for you, you can't listen! Please," Max broke off desperately, eyes full of pleading and fear. Lauren continued to stare at her little cousin in fear, but she knew this was no joke and she could only nod as she felt something worm painfully into her skull, an agonizing static screaming in her ears. Uh oh...

"Ok. I refused," Lauren said the moment the agonizing talk was over. She was breathing hard and trembling with terror. Max was looking intently at her and she felt just as fervent in wanting to get it all out as fast as possible. "He said it wasn't over and he was going to send something much worse, but he didn't tell me what."

"That's ok, then. That's fine," Max said quickly. "We just need you to say no, now come on. We need a new plan and we need to keep running!" then without further ado, she grabbed Lauren and pulled the girl from the cabin, thoughts flying as fast as her feet. Lauren, all the while, was thinking. If Max's words were true, they had saved Kate, even if only for a moment. But one moment was better than none, right?...

But the pair was stopped again by Slenderman, though this time, he attacked Max. He entered her brain and Max fell to her knees, screaming and clawing at her ears as a horrific voice slithered into her ears and wriggled through her body. It was disgusting and horrible and she would've been willing to do anything to make it stop, but it refused. Instead, his essence continued to fill and course through her body. It felt very much like violation and made Max want to puke. She was convulsing, trying to shake him off and out, but it didn't work. Instead, she could only wait for him to finish with her, totally at his mercy...

Finally, he spoke, and his voice was the worst sound Max had ever heard because it somehow managed to mingle every word of anger, grief, fear, regret, guilt and pain that Max had ever heard or said. She could hear ever timbre intermixing in a nightmarish unison and all that was wrapped up into one simple, frank voice. So many wicked, horrible, terrible, evil emotions came out in one, flat, ethereal and ominous drone.

"Maxine Caulfield. My child. What ever are you doing? Are you trying to save your friends? But that won't work! I thought Chloe would've made it all too clear to you that you are destined to lose everything you love," the voice hissed. Max could only cry, not even bothering to snarl at him for daring to speak Chloe's precious name. "But ever the Everyday Hero that you are, I suppose it only natural you try to save the next person in line, your cousin. She has just as much strength as you. However, she will crumble just as Chloe did and you will be the one to propagate my new bloodline. You, my powerful little girl, are my new heir, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!"

"No!" Max finally found the strength to reply. "I _will_ stop you and I _will_ save my friends! I will save Kate and Lauren and you cannot stop me and I won't ever let you hurt me or any of my friends or family again!"

"Ah, spirited little girl! So like Lauren. She fought hard for Kate too. But in the end, it was just as futile as your battle for Chloe was and will be…"

"Will be?" Max snarled, still convulsing.

"Ah yes, you didn't know. Of course Lauren wouldn't tell you the truth…" then Slenderman ceased to speak, instead casting a vision to Max of when she and Lauren fled their first proxy. Through the vision, Max saw that which she had missed before. It was of watching the proxy fall to the ground, and then get up slowly, mask and hood thrown off from the fall. Now she got to see the blue hair, pale skin and hazel eyes. Chloe! An evil laugh that chilled Max to her core and made her want to hide forever shook her whole body as the image of a wild Chloe slowly faded away…

"Max? Max?! MAX!" Max was aware of Lauren shaking her desperately. Max turned her dazed head towards her cousin. "Oh! Max! Thank goodness you're ok! You just blacked out on me and I was so scared… Don't you ever do that again, ok?!" Lauren practically crushed Max in a hug and wept while Max trembled violently, feeling a nosebleed start. For a moment, she allowed Lauren to hug her, crying into her shoulder and kissing her cheek over and over again, then the enormity of what Slenderman revealed to her sank in…

"I'm sorry," Lauren rasped, cowering away as Max yelled at her. Although it might've seemed dumb and dangerous for Max to be so loud, she already knew that Slenderman wasn't going to attack. Not yet, at least, not while he was so busy relishing the dirty little secret he'd just told to Max. No, he would leave them alone for now, enjoying the drama that would unfold from this dark epiphany. Max could be as loud and aggressive as she wanted, and all without fear, so she was.

"SORRY?! My best friend has been resurrected as a monster and you knew and you didn't tell me and you're just sorry?! You must be insane!" to say Max was mad that Lauren had kept this secret from her was an understatement, and it was only the general fear of Slenderman that kept Max from totally running from or fighting Lauren right then and there. Maybe she inherently knew Slenderman wouldn't attack right now, but even she wasn't stupid enough to totally let her guard down, or to directly turn on the only ally she had in this whole nightmare.

Besides, underneath it all, Max knew full well it wasn't just Lauren she was mad at. It was also Slenderman, Chloe and herself. She was mad at Slenderman for doing this to them, Chloe for becoming a monster, and herself for being powerless to stop either and then resorting to taking her anger out on Lauren, as if Lauren hadn't endured enough.

But behind _that_ was a nearly psychotic thought that if Chloe was alive again, proxy or not, she could be saved and Max's sanity, which was no longer stable, began to convince her to stay around a tad longer just to save Chloe. After all, hadn't Lauren tried to save Kate? It was the same thing. So even though Max was screaming vengeance at Lauren, her mind was elsewhere, planning on how to save Chloe, proxy or human. If this was life's strange way of giving Max another chance to save Chloe, then she would take it without hesitation. Neither storm nor Slenderman would take Chloe from her again, especially now that her power was stronger than ever...

At last, though, even Max got tired and she finally stopped yelling at Lauren who was currently curled up miserably on the ground, simply taking the abuse Max was hurling at her without even the slightest bit of resistance. Max finally took in what she had done and what she had reduced Lauren to and she instantly felt her heart wrench in guilt. She knelt beside the older girl and touched her shoulder gently, apologetically.

"Lauren? Hey. I'm sorry I got so pissed. Really I am. I know it wasn't fair of me at all, but I just got carried away," she murmured guiltily.

"It's ok," Lauren sighed sadly, still in fetal position on the ground. "I'm sorry I dragged you into all of this. I deserve it all anyway."

"No you don't," Max replied, soft but firm. "And you aren't to blame. This became my fight the moment he hurt Chloe and you. Now come on, we're gonna get out of here," she said, and Lauren looked up at her, a sad smile on her face, but it was just enough, so when Max reached out for her cousin, she knew her cousin would take her hand.

So here the Caulfield cousins stood, in the middle of a dark and evil forest with an ancient evil demon chasing them down with their friends who had both been turned mindless monsters. It wasn't exactly how Max thought she'd spend her spring break, but like she told Lauren, this fight became hers the moment Slenderman hurt her and Chloe. Now he was going to pay dearly...

On and on the duo ran until Lauren couldn't help but ask.

"Hey, Max. You did say we saved Kate, right?" she asked.

"Yes. But only temporarily," Max warned.

"I know," Lauren replied. "But do you think we could do it again…?" it was a risky question and Max wanted to say no, but she knew Lauren wouldn't accept that answer, and besides, she wanted to save Chloe. Maybe if they saved Kate, that would give them a better shot at saving Chloe?

"Maybe," Max finally said. "We just need to find her first."

"Well, good thing I think I know where her main lair is," Lauren replied with an almost evil smile. Oh boy. What had Max gotten herself into now?

Lauren confessed, as she led Max back into the woods into what appeared to be an empty garage separate from the mines, that she had memorized some of the places Kate hung out at.

"You sure she'll be at this one?" asked Max as they approached this lonely, abandoned side-building.

"No," Lauren admitted as she ushered Max inside. "But this is a start."

"True," Max agreed, following Lauren obediently into the semi-garage. Inside was a little TV sitting atop a little table. What?

"This is where I found out what happened to Kate," Lauren answered Max's silent question, gesturing to the TV and two videotapes beside it.

"May I watch?" Max pointed to the tapes.

"They're kind of hard to watch," Lauren warned, but when Max only insisted, Lauren put a tape into the TV.

A few minutes later, once the tape had come to an end, Max could only shake in disgust and horror as Lauren took the tape back out.

"Wow," she murmured, looking back at Lauren sadly. Lauren shrugged, looking away.

The pair sat in silence for a bit longer before Max spoke up again.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Well, we'll wait for a bit longer," Lauren said. "But if we can't find her, I guess we can go..."

"Ok," Max nodded. Then she swallowed. She had another question to ask, though it was a bit riskier. "What do you think happened to Chloe?"

"Well," Lauren began. "I think Slenderman wanted you because of me and then, to get to you, he went after Chloe. It probably was just bad luck about her being shot, but everything thereafter wasn't. Slenderman caused the storm. He seems to have the ability to manipulate weather, making it cold and stormy at will, though I never realized to such an extent. I thought he only did it for the ambiance and the aesthetic. I never realized what he was really capable of... But then as for the time travel? Well, Slenderman is no stranger to reality warping," Lauren smirked bitterly.

"Oh," Max frowned. "So it was because of me…"

"No! No," Lauren comforted the younger Caulfield, bitterness snapping back into reassurance at once. "If anything, it was because of me… Or rather, Kate. Or her parents. Or… Oh! Never mind! It just depends on how far you want to go back!" the older girl shook her head. "But either way, it was _not_ because of you, so don't you dare even think it! Not for one second!" she promised passionately, but Max wasn't hearing any of this.

"How far you want to go back," instead, Max was thinking about something else Lauren had just said. Then her eyes widened.

"Do you think we could go back? Like, all the way to when Slenderman first existed?" she asked.

"No," Lauren said, seeing where Max was coming from and cutting her down quickly. "We don't know when he came about and we don't know what he was like back then. Besides, the first record of his existence was so far back that I don't think you could reverse that much time."

"True," Max allowed, but then another realization came to her. "But wait? Didn't you say he came from Germany?" Lauren nodded. "Then when and how did he get to Canada?"

"I'm not sure," admitted Lauren.

"Maybe we can figure out and go stop him then?" Max suggested. "If we can't beat his birth, maybe we can beat his arrival!"

"Perhaps," Lauren frowned. "But we need to figure out when he came here."

"Well it looked like the Homestead tape gave us a clue," Max gestured to the TV.

"That's right!" Lauren's eyes began to widen. "It did!"


	4. The Spell

Suddenly, then, the girl were running through the forest once again. This time, though, they were headed to the Matheson Farm.

"But wait!" Max stopped Lauren before she could get too close. "The last time we were here, Slenderman attacked us. Is there any way can get inside without him sensing us?" she asked. Lauren bit her lip and shook her head uncertainly. Maybe if they had Kate... But they didn't. In this place, there was only Charlie Jr. But then again, last time Lauren met Charlie, Charlie had jumped her... Oh, speak of the literal Devil! Charlie suddenly appeared in the doorway of the farm, looking at the two girls intently.

"Should we reverse?" asked Max the moment his little skeletal body appeared.

"Not yet," Lauren responded. "Let's see what happens. Slenderman hasn't shown up yet..."

A few more moments later, Charlie began to limp towards them.

"Oh crap!" Max muttered, stepping back. Lauren did likewise, carefully stepping in front of the other Caulfield. Neither of them moved until, at last, Charlie stopped right in front of them and spoke.

"Lauren?" he asked, voice warbled and broken. This stunned both girls into silence.

"Oh crap!" Max repeated, but this time with a different intonation.

Following the stinger that Charlie was free, could talk and knew who Lauren was, the duo became a trio. Charlie confessed that he, like Kate, was a proxy, but wasn't under Slenderman's control all the time. Instead, it was only when Slenderman needed him, or was nearby.

"But if he's busy somewhere else, it's just me," Charlie explained. "Now come on! We've been watching you for quite some time and we need your help real bad! Follow me!"

"Wait. We?" Max interrupted. Charlie looked up at her and she tried not to hurl as she saw his face up close and personal in all its gory glory.

"Yes, Maxine Caulfield," he said. Then Max almost hurled again just out of pure shock that he knew her real name.

"How did-?" she began weakly.

"Kate told me," he explained.

"Oh," Max laughed nervously. But then Charlie said something else that made everything just a little bit stranger again.

"Kate told me, and so did Chloe Price."

Charlie then explained how, ever since Slenderman had come to the forest many generations ago, more and more people had become trapped in this Hell of a park. Kate was the most recent prisoner, the one preceding her being Chloe Price.

"She's here?" Max gasped, looking like she was trying to keep herself from sprinting back through the entirety of Oakside just to find Chloe.

"Yes," Charlie nodded, head looking like it was about to flop off. "She came in a few weeks ago!"

"That sounds about right," Max muttered darkly.

"Yeah. Slenderman brought her in, bullet hole still in her head, but he fixed her. Sort of…" Charlie frowned, a horrific sight. Then he elaborated.

After being brought in, Slenderman made Chloe into his proxy, named Blueblood. He resurrected her, closing that bullet wound in her head. From that day forward, her sole purpose was to wait. She did roam the forests and kill several travelers, but she wasn't a heavy hitter. Not yet at least. Lauren didn't meet her during her exploration for Kate. But she certainly met Kate, the Chaser.

"I think he's been hunting you longer than you think," Charlie muttered at Max, who shuddered in agreement. She wasn't sure just how long Slenderman had been after her, but given that he knew enough to set up an elaborate death trap to kill Chloe to test her mettle meant that it had been for quite awhile. In the back of her mind, Max began to wonder if Slenderman was the reason she got taken into Blackwell Academy. What if he had rigged her acceptance into the school just to get her back into Arcadia Bay because of Chloe? It might've sounded like a stretch, but given who Slenderman was, something like that couldn't have been too hard to do.

"So what are you asking us to do?" asked Lauren, breaking Max's thoughts.

"To come with us, quickly! We think we have a way to save ourselves, but we need your help, really badly!" he looked particularly hard at Max and she nodded knowingly at once. She had no clue what Charlie's plan was, but if it gave her the chance to see Chloe again…

"Let's go now," she insisted. Lauren cast her a wary glance, but she nodded her consent and gestured for Charlie to lead them on. He looked relieved before darting back towards his farm. Instead of going into the barn, house or chapel, though, he was going to the basement.

"Oh, wonderful!" Lauren giggled nervously. Max looked at her before taking her arm. Lauren calmed down slightly and smiled at her before following her and Charlie into that basement.

"Kate?" Lauren, despite coming in last, was first to speak once she got into the basement. Sure enough, there, sitting cross-legged in the center of the shabby place, was Kate.

"Lauren?" Kate looked up at her and despite her mutilated face they could all see genuine warmth in her eyes. She got up and limped over to Lauren and the two old friends were suddenly weeping in each other's arms.

"But where is Chloe?" asked Max anxiously.

"She's, uhhh, not technically _here_ ," Charlie mumbled.

"But you said-!" Max accused, drawing herself up angrily.

"I did!" Charlie admitted. "But I meant that while she was a proxy she was still one of the more dangerous ones!"

"You little-!" Max looked ready to throttle the boy for lying to her.

"I had to say it to get you here! We really do need you!" Charlie pleaded, backing up in fright. Max felt fury rising in her heart, but then she couldn't help but see Charlie's point. It was a massive disappointment to see that Chloe wasn't here despite being, well, here, but it made sense. Her time powers made her useful and anybody who needed her would say anything to get her. She had to concede that Charlie did the logical thing by twisting the truth to get her to come down here. Besides, even though Chloe was still an evil proxy, if Kate could break the cycle, so could Chloe! So maybe all hope was not lost yet...

"Ok, fine!" Max exhaled slowly, forcing herself to calm down. "What do you need me to do?" she asked. Charlie looked up at her in relief and Max couldn't tell if this was because she'd pretty much just sworn her loyalty and obedience to him despite his deceit, or if he was just glad that she wasn't going to pound him into the cement that made the basement's floor. Perhaps it was a bit of both. He really was a scrawny little kid. Max could've probably broken him in half with two fingers!

"I have a spell book," he said, slowly, but confident that Max wasn't going to turn him into a pile of goo after all. "I think it's how Slenderman was brought over here from Germany," as the boy said this, Kate fetched the book in question. It looked like a very cliché spell book to be sure, large, with a big black cover and musty old pages. Opening it up, it was even full of unintelligible runes.

"So what do you need me for?" asked Max.

"Well, I'm going to try and decipher it. If all goes well, we can send Slenderman back," Charlie said. "I just need you to-"

"Make sure he doesn't arrive and if he does, use my powers to rewind time and fix things," Max interrupted.

"Yes," Charlie replied, impressed and sheepish.

"Ok," Max sighed in resignation. "Let's get this party started."

A bit later, the group was standing in the old Matheson chapel. As creepy as it was, there was almost a peace in the place, like it knew things were about to get back to normal. Of course, though, life was strange and nothing normal could stay. Charlie was only halfway through the spell when who should appear but Chloe herself, snarling and demonic, glowing eyes dead set on Max.

"Max! Look out!" Kate and Lauren both bellowed as Chloe ran at her on all fours, like some kind of wild animal.

"Chloe?" Max reached out to the girl.

"MAX!" her friends cried out to her again. But now it was Max's turn to ignore them in favor of Chloe. She could see why Lauren had found it so hard to resist Chaser before. But if Chaser could be saved, couldn't Chloe?

"Argh!" Max had reached out for Chloe, but Chloe only grabbed her arm, twisting it backwards violently until something in her arm snapped like a twig. The brunette clutched her arm in agony, miserable eyes staring up at Chloe's wild figure. Breaking Max's wrist had incited a new fire into her and it was only an attack from Charlie that kept Max from being killed at once. She cried out, though, when Charlie punched Chloe square on the nose, a small gush of blood shooting out of her nose when Charlie's bony fist made impact.

"Don't hurt her!" Max pleaded as Chloe stumbled backward, clutching her face and snarling angrily.

"Are you mad?!" Lauren cried.

"She's my Kate!" Max responded, and Kate cocked her own head up in reply.

"Not anymore, she's not!" Charlie responded, still trying to hold her back.

"But let her go!" Max pleaded again.

"No! Reverse time!" Charlie ordered. "If I let her go, she's going to kill us all! Reverse time and we can trap her because we know where she'll come in at!" the boy pleaded, and Max realized he was right. Charlie's plan was sound, so she obeyed his orders.

Charlie was only halfway through the spell when who should appear but Chloe herself, snarling and demonic, glowing eyes dead set on Max. Max had been ready for this, however, and when Chloe came running at her, Max pulled out a rope that she had been hiding behind her back. She threw one of the ends to Kate, who had also been anticipating this moment, and then the pair quickly wrangled Chloe in, ensnaring her.

"Whoa! You weren't kidding when you said she'd be here!" Charlie marveled up at the blue-haired girl while Max gave him a sad smile.

"It was thanks to your plan," she said, then she told him about what had happened in the previous timeline.

"Wow!" he cried, sounding pleased with himself.

"But the spell! Finish the spell!" Lauren pleaded and Charlie quickly returned to what he was doing, opening the old spell book again. It became evident that Charlie had been planning this kind of escape for a long time and even though he was still struggling with the meaning behind some of the runes and symbols, he actually had quite a lot of them down!

But sadly, another interrupter came along. This one was Ticci Toby.

"Still trying to kill our master, eh Charlie?" the older proxy teased the younger cruelly. "He won't be too happy about that!"  
"As if I care what makes him happy!" Charlie shot back. "He's vile and cruel and deserves what he has coming to him!" the boy insisted, waving the spell book a little to illustrate his point. The moment Charlie's focus slipped, however, Max noticed that some of the lights in the chapel were starting to flicker. She said nothing at first, however, observing as Toby and Charlie began to argue. Still tied up, Chloe snarled and screeched. She could sense the rising tension in the air and wanted in on the action.

"Face it Turdy Toby!" Charlie snarled. "You just don't want to send Slenderman back because you're too much a coward to live on your own!"

"Coward?! COWARD?! You calling me a coward?!" Toby thundered, drawing his axe and waving it. Charlie didn't back down. At last, however, Max knew it was time to call it quits and she quickly reversed time before Charlie could get killed.

"As if I care what makes him happy!" Charlie shot back.

"Enough!" Max interrupted before Charlie could keep going. "Toby, please! Surely you can't want this life?!" the brunette continued to spend the next few seconds trying to get Toby to ally with her. She wanted him to see that Slenderman was little more than a slave-driver. Though he might've made wonderful promises to Toby, surely a life like this, hunting a forest searching for the peace that would never come while he was still so bitter and anger, couldn't be a life he really wanted, but Toby was stubborn. He ignored all of Max's pathetic attempts at reasoning and continued, instead, to taunt her, Lauren, Charlie and Chloe.

"You'll never make it, you know?" he demanded coldly. "Even if you win, _she_ will die," he flicked his head to Chloe. "And so will she!" he added, pointing to Kate. "If you finish the spell, you won't just be killing Slenderman," Toby warned dangerously.

"What?" both of the Caulfields asked.

"It's true!" Toby swore. "Every proxy is tied to Slenderman, and if he dies, we die! So unless you want to sacrifice them…" he trailed off and suddenly, another impasse had been reached.

"No," Charlie broke the silence. "No! We don't care! We don't care Toby! We don't care! We don't care what the cost is! We have to stop Slenderman and you won't stop us!" he continued to rail against the ugly proxy before them. "If his life costs us ours, who cares?! I am ready to die if it means that he dies too! This is a small price to pay, Toby, and your dumb threats don't scare us!"

"Are you sure about that?" Toby began to manipulate Charlie but Charlie tried to stay firm. He might've still had the body of a little boy, but after spending decades upon decades as nothing but a shell and a shadow, a vessel to Slenderman's every whim, he had grown quite the spine and he wasn't bluffing when he told Toby that he no longer feared death. Sure, he didn't want to die, but he didn't want Slenderman to live either.

At the same time, while the two male proxies were going at it, Lauren was clutching Kate's face and pleading with her, begging to know if what Charlie had just said about proxies being tied to Slenderman's life force was true. Kate wasn't exactly denying it, but she wasn't agreeing either, trying instead to push Lauren off of her. Max wasn't paying attention to any of it, staring brokenly at Chloe, who was still thrashing psychotically against her rope prison. She was still snarling, spitting and screaming, like a rabid animal. It would've been absolutely terrifying, had it not also been so very heartbreaking. Max had come so far after so long only to hear that it was a doomed quest from the get-go. Even if she did find some way to bring Chloe out of her proxy state, she would still have to die in order for Slenderman to truly be defeated. It took all of Max's strength not to break down crying right then and there.

"I'm sorry, Chloe," she rasped weakly at the wild girl, then she reversed time one last time.

"As if I care what makes him happy!" Charlie shot back.

"Enough!" Max cried. Then she let go of the rope she was hiding behind her back and she let Chloe come barreling in, uninhibited.

"What are you doing?!" Lauren and Kate cried in unison. But Max ignored them both, pointing to Toby.

"Ha! As if she'll listen to you!" Toby sneered at Max, but Max didn't even bother to argue with him. Instead, she began to run in his direction and, since Chloe was chasing after her, this meant that Max's move was forcing Chloe to chase after Toby as well.

"READ THE SPELL!" Max screamed from the three-way chase that she was stuck in. Charlie sat there in stunned silence for just a moment before Max's scream woke him up and he began to chant again, flipping through the musty old pages of the spell book. All the while, he cursed his idiot ancestors that had summoned Slenderman in the first place. This was all their fault!

But one last interruption was still due. This time, Slenderman himself arrived.

"Oh, Charlie! Friends! All of you! Did you really think you could defeat me?" he asked, tentacles winding out to pick up each and every last one of them as he, in all his demonic glory, suddenly appeared at the chapel's doors. He was so very tall and thin that he had to bend over to get in, but any humor of such a gesture was lost on the pure horror everyone was experiencing just by him being in their proximity. One could never laugh at how silly Slenderman was on a physical level just because his mind and reality warping were too distorting and disturbing to allow for any humor to be felt. There was nothing but confusion, chaos and fear as he made his grand entrance, picking up every single living being in that chapel and dangling them high in the air. The only one left standing was Ticci Toby, looking triumphantly up at his godlike master.

"You especially, Max!" Slenderman added, faceless face boring into Max's such that she began to sob and scream even though she was only looking at an empty palette. "You thought your time powers could possibly stop me! Didn't you know that I was the 1 who created that power? I can take it away just as easily!" then one smaller tentacle pushed forward and plucked the necklace from Max's throat.

"NO!" Max shouted, writhing even harder against the tentacles than ever before. Slenderman only uttered a chilling chuckle that sent a literal chill down all of their backs, then he proceeded to torture them all, dangling the necklace in front of every face as his dark magic began to literally eat away at them until all they could hear was their own screaming and all they could smell or taste was their own blood under tides of agony. What ever spell it was that Slenderman was using, it was a mix of overstimulation of the senses and a rapid decay of the body. He continued to play with them, bouncing them up and down in his tentacles as he continued to work his dark magic, sinister laughter echoing the old, empty building as his continued to torment his victims for his own enjoyment.

But ultimately, such pride and sadism was Slenderman's own undoing because, as he continued to torture them all, except for Toby who had skittered off back into the forest in triumph, the pain woke Chloe up. Slenderman seemed to forget that she was still under his spell firmly enough to constitute as an ally and, instead, his desire to torment Max was overriding that rationale and he basically, accidently, tortured Chloe back onto Max's side. The pain and decay she was suffering finally snapped her out of her mini comatose and she was suddenly aware of herself, dangling about 15 feet in the air by her ankles, being waved around by a thick, slimy black tentacle that was causing her immense pain of the body, mind and soul. It was not exactly the warmest of wakeup calls, but it was enough. It was enough to bring Chloe back. And even through her agony, confusion and surprise, the blue-haired girl could see Max, in a very similar position. Just one look at her friend's face and it was like a light had been switched on her in brain. Despite spending weeks under Slenderman's diabolical and corruptive influence, all of that seemed to wash away the moment Chloe got a chance to see Max's face again. That was all Chloe needed.

"Hrrgggaaahhh!" Chloe uttered a nightmarish scream of pain and she let her eyes glow with insanity. Slenderman turned his empty face to her and although seeing it began to cause her to hallucinate, she continued to play the part of a possessed proxy, and she played her part very well. Slenderman began to dangle Max's time necklace in front of Max before slowly drawing it over to Chloe's face. He dangled it there, turning his faceless countenance back to Max as though to silently say, "Look, I've got your friend and your powers. What can you do to stop me?" and that was just the distraction Chloe needed. While Slenderman continued to inflict this psychological trauma upon Max, Chloe managed to swing forward and snatch up the necklace. It was strange, too, even though she had no explicit idea what the necklace was, it was like her implicit memory did and, without even realizing it, she managed to activate the powers and reverse the clock.

Chloe found herself stuck in a rope net being held onto by Max and some other freaky girl. Chaser. Wasn't that her name? And as Chloe slowly regained her bearings, she could see Max arguing with the axe-boy, Ticking Toby, or whatever. Chloe couldn't hear what was being said over her own roaring and screeching, but she didn't need to know. Instead, she moved desperately to one side of the rope, trying to catch the eye of the Chaser girl. It was because, even though Chloe couldn't remember much about her, she did remember learning from some source that this was a girl named Kate, who was good friends with a girl named Lauren, who was Max's older cousin. That was all Chloe needed to know to guess that Kate was an ally, a good proxy, one who wanted for this nightmare to end just as much as she did, so while Max continued to argue with the Toby guy (who was most definitely not an ally), Chloe tried to get Kate's attention.

"Come on, Kate! Look up!" Chloe pleaded softly. She tried to wiggle her arm out of the makeshift rope-prison she was stuck in. She had to admit that it was quite impressive, what a tight job Kate and Max had done, especially given that it was only one old strand of rope that had been down in the basement of the Matheson house. It wasn't anything new or fresh and it wasn't like a metal chain, but it still had Chloe immobilized. She continued to wriggle, though not just in attempt to get Kate's attention, but to grab onto Max's necklace, which was now hanging from her throat. She wanted to have it in hand in case something screwed up. She may not have been a Time Lord, but she'd heard Max describe to Lauren through their earlier adventures how the powers worked and that was enough for her to have some idea of what the necklace could do and how.

But ultimately, Chloe didn't need to use the necklace, because Lauren looked up, and when she saw Chloe's throat, Max's necklace resting upon it, she inhaled sharply, though she made no other obvious moves. Instead, she pretended to look away before looking back up at Chloe. She stepped backward, pretending as though whatever Toby was saying currently was scaring her, then, once she was more in Chloe's line of vision, she slowly turned her head towards the blue-haired proxy. Chloe felt Lauren's eyes upon her and she, at once, turned to meet the other Caulfield's eyes. In a matter of a few seconds and a couple gestures, she managed to pantomime exactly what needed to happen next:

"Free me so I can distract Toby. I'll give you this time necklace thing. Finish the spell. Save the day." Lauren understood all of this.

"Shut up, Toby!" Lauren screamed out of nowhere. Toby, Max and Charlie, who had all been arguing, paused midsentence.

"Oh. I'm sorry. What did you say?!" Toby sneered, waving his axe again, somewhat surprised by Lauren's seemingly random interruption.

"She said shut up!" Kate answered for her, feral growl slipping into her speech at the sight of Lauren being threatened.

"Oh! I suppose a great Chaser like you is going to stop me?" Toby sneered, turning on her next, still waving his axe threateningly.

"Not without a little help!" Lauren said, then she took a few steps to the left, grabbed the rope from Kate's hand, and tossed it to the ground. With Kate no longer holding half of what made up Chloe's prison, the blue-haired proxy was able to escape in no time. Toby didn't even have time to blink before she had suddenly tackled him harder than a football player. He bellowed in shock and pain, but Chloe was deaf to his screams as they engaged in a battle fierce enough to rival the one Kate had had with him in an earlier timeline from what felt like eons ago.

While Chloe went after Toby, Kate eventually joining in the fray once she seemed to realize that Chloe was now a friend somehow, Charlie finally got a chance to finish his spell. Or at least, he almost did. While the proxies battled each other, this left Max and Lauren as Charlie's sole protectors and they were powerless when Slenderman made his entrance, one tentacle shooting out to grab Charlie. The moment Charlie felt his body going up, he dropped the book downward at the two Caulfields, a simple command embedded in that one little gesture: finish the spell. That was the last message he ever got to convey, Slenderman then slowly ripping the boy apart at the limb, the grotesque sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone audible even over the proxy scuffle happening at his feet. Lauren picked up the spell book, trying to finish what Charlie started.

"Foolish mortal!" Slenderman thundered, all tentacles out and active, lashing out at anything that moved, but Kate managed to pull herself away from the fight with Toby to lunge to Lauren's aid, shielding her with her own body.

"Help me protect her!" the ex-proxy thundered at Max and Max obeyed, she and Kate both shielding Lauren from Slenderman's attacks while Lauren herself tried to finish up the spell. Chloe was fighting as hard as she could to keep Toby subdued on her own.

"You will never escape!" Slenderman vowed, then he began to teleport them all around the chapel in attempts to separate and stop them.

At last, he caught Max. She screamed in agony and terror as one of his tentacles curled around her elbow and hoisted her high. He laughed wickedly, the sound rasping and rumbling through the very foundation of the chapel as he celebrated his little victory.

"What will you do now that your little Time Warp has been caught?" he sneered down at the others in triumph. Max was sobbing and screaming against Slenderman's cold tentacles, but she was powerless to escape.

"Reverse time and fix things!" Chloe responded in a human voice, finally removing herself from Toby's grasp.

"WHAT?!" Slenderman hissed, turning to her. Empty face or not, she could tell that he was beyond furious. The blue-haired girl dared to pull out the necklace, which she had since hidden up her jacket's sleeve during the little scuffle with Toby.

"WHAT?!" Slenderman repeated, turning his empty face back to Max who shut her eyes at once. She felt like was going to pass out despite not looking at Slenderman and she felt his tentacles slither grossly around her neck. No necklace.

"HOW?!" Slenderman asked the question Max wanted to ask but couldn't since he was presently cutting off her air supply.

"It's a long story," Chloe answered, voice deadly quiet now as she continued to swing the necklace between her fingers, tauntingly. "And I am afraid that I do not have the time to relate it to you now, and I'm certainly not going to try and reverse things just so I can," she added.

Then she made a big show about turning to Lauren. Slenderman followed her line of vision and another surge of unmatched, unholy anger filled his entire being. Lauren had finished reading. The spell was complete. While Chloe and Max had distracted Slenderman, Lauren had finished reading the spell, Kate still standing protectively in front of her. They were standing at the ruined alter at the far end of the chapel and a black portal began to open up around them. They both stepped back safely from the edge and the thing began to rumble ominously.

"No. No! NOOOOOO!" Slenderman howled, the sound of crashing chords and a distorting static screaming in everybody's mind as, for once, this eldritch abomination began to panic. Slowly, it was drawn back into the black pit from whence it had come, slowly unraveling like a ball of black and white yarn until it was only one thin line finally tapering off into nothingness as it was fully sent back to where it belonged. All the while, as Slenderman became one long string of black and white, the entire chapel filled with flashes of black and white until no one could see anything, but the moment the demon had been totally vanquished, everything returned to normal. Almost.

Once the dust had settled, two more were missing.

"Chloe and Kate," Max murmured hollowly as Lauren stood holding her in a protective hug, spell book dropped on the floor.

"No…" Lauren choked out miserably, but it was true. Her and Max's best friends were gone too, and even Charlie's body had vanished as well.

"They knew this would happen," Max responded. Then before Lauren could even ask, she spoke about what happened in one of the previous rewinds in which Toby had tried to manipulate them into surrendering in order to keep the proxies alive.

"Why didn't you tell me? Lauren choked.

"And force you to make the decision we all know had to be made?" Max asked back, crying too. Lauren wanted to say more, to be mad at Max for keeping this secret from her but she couldn't. Instead, she only wept, and Max did too, crying out for Chloe as she held onto Lauren like a lifeline.

But the two girls could not cry forever and as the sun began to glare through the dusty, stained-glass windows of the chapel, Max spoke.

"What do we do now?" she asked, still trembling but no longer sobbing.

"Go home!" Lauren responded with a weak sob as she began to pull Max out of the chapel. They both staggered to the door and them limped their way right past the once-foreboding gates of Oakside. They emerged from that awful forest just as their parents and the cops had arrived, once more, to Kate's house for further investigation. The two girls hung back once they saw the swarm of cops arriving, neither of them wanting to have to face the drama that would be sure to follow when they, bloody and bruised as they were, were to make their grand entrance, but as they could not run and hide either, they only exchanged one little look for reassurance before turning back to the crowd of police.

"Together?" asked Max and Lauren replied by squeezing Max's hand tightly in her own. The two exchanged weak little smiles before they resumed their walk home, all of the cops and their parents each staring up at them in shock, horror and utter confusion and disbelief as they made their strange arrival home.

 **AN: So this was literally a weird, fever-dream crossover fic I got inspired to write after realizing that Max Caulfield looks a bit like Lauren. I'm sorry if it's OOC or if Max's powers don't behave the way they should and I also apologize for any plot inconsistences, but I hope you still liked the general gist of this tale. (Please, review, and if you want, point out any inconsistency so I can fix it!)**


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